


This Wound is Fresh

by wickersnap



Series: Of the things I have to tell you [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anakin Skywalker Doesn't Turn to the Dark Side, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Depression, F/M, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Order 66, Post-Order 66, References to Genocide, Self-Flagellation, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, and murder, but understandably because Palpatine has been in his head controlling him and the like, like he goes off the deep end, loving and supportive friends & partners, sort of??, this isn't happy but things occur that are better than canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26392507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickersnap/pseuds/wickersnap
Summary: He doesn’t know how many Coruscant rotations it’s been since they left. There’s a ship docked in a lower bay, a small one-man thing that looks like some kind of tear-drop, and isn’t that appropriate. He knows it’s there because someone—Stone, actually, not justsomeone—commed an increasingly long time ago to inform him.
Relationships: CC-1010 | Fox & CC-5869 | Stone, Riyo Chuchi/CC-1010 | Fox
Series: Of the things I have to tell you [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1899607
Comments: 5
Kudos: 107





	This Wound is Fresh

When Fox opens his eyes, it’s to Stone kicking him awake on the floor. He groans and rolls away, caught up neatly in the soft woolen thing wrapped around his shoulders. His head kriffing _hurts._

“Oh, don’t do that you swot,” Stone snaps. “Get us out of here so we can go and kick someone’s teeth in.”

Fox opens his eyes again and rolls back over, finally registering the background grumbles of his other brothers all coming from one tangled pile beside him.

Oh, Sith Hells.

The floor he’s lying on is the scorched carpet of Senator Amidala’s personal quarters. The reason he’s here is… Is… 

_Palpatine._

The reason his head hurts—Palpatine. The reason he’s curled in Skywalker’s cloak—Palpatine. The reason he hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in over a year—Palpatine. 

And fucking _Force_ gods, the Jedi Temple.

Fox scrambles out of the tangle of cloak. He ends up sat wide-eyed on his arse across the room, soaking in the sight of all their destruction and letting the last ten minutes of his memory (the only lucid ten minutes between now and… more than a month ago) swim back to the surface.

Palpatine. Sidious. Skywalker. _Amidala._

“Fuck,” he says, and crawls back, desperately, to his tied up brothers. “Fuck, _fuck,_ we have to get back to the Senate.”

“Where’s the General?” Stone asks. “Rex?”

“Gone,” Fox says. He gives up on tugging and pulls a vibroblade from his belt instead, yanking it through the thick band of cords with a number of satisfying snaps. “Gone, hopefully, if they know what’s good for them.”

Stone nods and rolls off of poor Dune, who wheezes and splays himself spread eagle to enjoy his new freedom. Wrench and Spanner are pulling the others to their feet and dusting them off. Duster is digging through something in the floor already, pulling out blasters and ammo and bacta. Fox pulls the cloak around himself as he stands and ambles over; he feels naked without his armour now that he knows what danger they’re in. Vulnerable. Too vulnerable. And now that he’s moving around, he realises his left hand is tingling something awful.

“Supplies,” Duster grunts. He passes Fox a ration bar from an open kit and watches him until he opens it and begins to eat. “The Senator seems well prepared, at least.”

“Well, I highly doubt it was the General,” Fox hums. “I bet Rex had at least a hand in it.”

Duster scoffs and picks a crumpled flimsi off the top of a cloak folded on the coffee table to give to him. It’s barely legible and signed by General Skywalker. “Shall we look for the other one?”

“No need!” Stone calls. Fox leans backwards until he can see him through the open bedroom doorway. He’s crouched by a second dislodged floor panel and is running his fingers over its contents.

“Anything we can use?” Fox asks.

“Some good old DCs, some Nubian slips of pistols, by the looks, and a shitload of med supplies. Oh, and would you like a better cloak?”

Fox curls his fingers into the soft, smokey wool of Skywalker’s robe. His ergonomical mind tells him could do with the thicker, heavier blastweave Rex probably packed. “I’m good, but thanks,” he says instead, and tries not to think about it. He takes one deep breath to steady himself, and begins to address the room at large.

“General Skywalker has been merciful to free us from the Chancellor’s control,” he says. “We are going to repay that kindness by following orders and rescuing Senator Amidala from where _we_ are holding her hostage in the Senate. She is important, injured, and pregnant, and so in a very precarious position. Take every medipack you can find. I’m going to make a call, and I want you all ready to leave in five. Look for anything else the General may have left us. Be—” he falters slightly, his voice cracking. “Be prepared to fire and be fired upon by our brothers. What I’m asking you to do is treason in the name of the Republic as we know it. We have our orders and we have people, the Senate and Jedi, that are relying on us to carry them out. Now’s the time to let me know if you want out.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” the surrounding squad reply as one. Not one of them steps forward to lay their guns down.

Fox sighs shakily, and turns his back. “Good,” he murmurs, “that’s good.”

When he makes the call, he makes sure he stands far out on the speeder pad’s catwalk. He’s out of earshot of his men and hoping similarly that it’ll disguise the trembling of his hands. The wind up here howls with retribution, diverted by the apartment’s shields but still menacing, not once allowing him to forget that it can swipe him straight into oblivion. He’d be less unnerved if he’d kept his blasted jetpack on.

He thumbs through his frequencies until he reaches the only name on the list that has ever managed to fill his heart with so much warmth just on sight. She answers almost on the first ring.

“Commander,” comes her slightly staticky voice. He can hear the smile in it, even as he imagines the worry that’s sure to be lining her face. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Riyo,” he breathes. “Riyo, where are you? Are you alone?”

“Still in my office, it’s just me,” she answers without question. “Fox? Are you all right? What’s going on? There’s been so much commotion—”

“I know, Riyo, I know. I’m—I’m all right, but I need you to be careful, okay? There’s… I need to ask for your help.”

A small, unidentifiable noise distorts the connection. “Oh, Fox. Anything, you know that.”

“Okay,” he says, and does his utmost to ignore the relentless pounding of his heart in his chest. “Okay, right. When I send the signal, I need you to get to Senator Amidala’s office as quickly as you can. You need to be careful, and you can’t trust anybody. _Anybody,_ you hear me? Except me, the men I’m with, or any Jedi. Actually, if you come across any Jedi they’re probably in dire need of help. General Windu is supposedly meeting with Senator Organa—listen to them, if you see them.”

“Padmé, Bail, Master Windu and nobody else,” she repeats. “Fox, what’s happening? Where are you?”

Fox chews his lip and closes his eyes. Stars, what a mess they’ve made of this. “I can’t tell you now. I’m currently in Amidala’s residence, but we’ve run into some complications. Riyo, I need you to promise me you’ll be careful. _Promise me.”_

“I will, I will, I promise, Fox, but you need to be careful too.”

“Wait for my signal.”

“Of course. Be safe.”

The connection cuts. Warmth drains from him like sand from a broken chronoglass as the wind screams at the shields, biting into his gloved fingers and rendering them bloodless. Fox turns from the glimmering skyline and marches back into the apartment. Skywalker’s cloak swirls around him dramatically. He feels sick.

“Sir!” Spanner says, stepping up to present him with a shiny, gold-plated protocol droid carrying a heavy cloak. “We found this waiting for us by the door. Says he’s on General Skywalker’s orders to accompany us.”

Fox turns to the droid, who jumps and stutters to introduce himself. “Why, yes sir. See-Threepio, human-cyborg relations at your service. Master Anakin has tasked me with accompanying Commanders Fox and Stone of the Coruscant Guard to attend to Mistress Padmé’s needs.”

“Great,” Fox sighs. He waves Spanner and See-Threepio towards the rest of the squad waiting in the entrance hall. “That would be me. Just keep quiet and do as I say, please, and we’ll get you to the Senator. You programmed to care for her, er, specific needs?”

Threepio inclines his head as he shuffles. “Of course, Commander. Masters Anakin and Rex want only the best for my Mistress.”

Several of the Guard flinch at the mention of Rex’s name, but Fox recons now is really not the time to worry about keeping their secrets buried. Anyway, he’s trained them better than this.

“All right! We go down, load the ship, and get our shebs over to the Senate as quickly and quietly as possible. If we encounter Thire’s squad I’ll be counting on you to distract and pacify. They’re likely not on our side and pose direct danger to our mission. Understood?”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

“Good, now move it!”

Fox, hanging back to call off the squads he'd left behind in the Senate, is the last out of the repulsorlift. He raises his hood carefully as he watches his men run to their LA patrol transport and load up their supplies, taking up positions with rifles and pistols at the ready. The new, shiny Nubian pistols on their utility belts stand out like galvanised thumbs. See-Threepio is lifted onboard and strapped down, penned in with crates and two escorts. General’s orders, after all.

Fox steps onto the deck and takes hold of the grip rail above his head. Immediately the engines below his feet begin to thrum, blast shields clattering down around them.

“Ready?” he asks his men.

“Ready to put a bullet through an old man’s brain for you sir? Always.”

Fox’s lips twitch despite himself. “I don’t think we’ll get that far, Tin, but I appreciate the thought.”

Duster scoffs. “Brothers who commit treason together stay together.”

“He killed three Jedi Masters and took down Rex and Generals Windu and Skywalker in under half an hour. I don’t want you going anywhere near him.”

Silence permeates the loud scream of the transport’s engines.

“Fuck,” Fox mutters, closing his eyes against the heavy wave of regret pulling him under. “I should have listened to ARC Fives.”

“That’s not your fault,” Stone says quietly beside him. “Don’t go there.”

 _Of course it’s my fault,_ Fox wants to scream. _I was the one who brought him straight to Sidious._

He says nothing.

The Senate building is eerily quiet when they arrive. The thrum of engines dies to near-silence as they offload and begin the march towards Nubian quarters. Fox strides out in front with his hood pulled low and Skywalker’s robes pinned closed between his fingers—curse the Jedi and their aversion to fastenings. No one bothers them, not even their brothers, because they’re all clones after all. The mindless, soulless dogs of the Republic. 

Well not them. Not any longer.

He knows the distance from the Pantoran offices to Amidala's should take Riyo six and a half minutes to walk, four to run. He pulls up his com two minutes out.

_Now._

As expected, they find Break and Shutter standing to attention posted either side of Amidala’s door. Fox stops in front of them and they snap off crisp salutes, moments before the muted sounds of two stun blasts have them crumpling to the floor. Spanner and Duster hurry forward to shift their prone bodies and take their places as Fox keys open the door on Guard override.

The door slides open near-silently, and Fox realises in that moment that he isn’t prepared for any of this.

The only light comes glinting through the back wall of the office, the large panel of reinforced, tinted transparisteel much like in every other room. Behind the desk that sits in front of it, strapped to the high-backed chair by her wrists and ankles, is the unconscious senator. Blood has dripped from an abrasion beneath her hairline, matting her loose, shimmering hair and leaving dried rusty streaks down her face. The shoulder of her silk gown is dark with it, seeping down towards her very large pregnant abdomen. Two singed patches on her chest and collar mark where the stun bolts hit her. Fox remembers now that he didn’t tell Stone to reduce the power level of their blasters.

The men fan out around the walls of the room without prompting. Break and Shutter have been bound and propped up in one corner and See-Threepio has been escorted towards the senator. Stone releases her bindings and pulls out the chair so they can tend to her, the droid muttering absurd exclamations all the while. Fox feels frozen in the middle of the floor, unable to do anything but watch them try to salvage his grave, grave mistakes.

The door at his back slides open again and a new, lighter voice joins the mix. 

“Fox!”

Fox turns on his heel, the hood falling away with a flick of a hand. Senator Riyo Chuchi stands there, framed by the light of the hallways until the door slides closed again. She seems to have forgone the usual splendours of the senatorial dress, instead tying her hair out of her face more simply than he’s ever seen and trading heavy skirts or velvets for simple tunic, waistcoat and breeches. She tucks her small, non-regulation stun blaster back into her belt as she surveys the scene, golden eyes wide and worried.

“Padmé! Is she all right? Fox, please tell me what’s happening!”

“Senator!” Trip splutters in surprise, the closest to her after Fox himself.

“Riyo, listen to me,” Fox says hoarsely. “The Chancellor is… Not who we thought he was. He’s taking over. The GAR has turned, and the five-oh-first was right about the control chips—the Jedi are being hunted down and killed. I—” His voice breaks to barely a whisper and his knees threaten to give. He stumbles, falling to his knees at Riyo’s feet. “I’ve done something terrible, Riyo.”

“She’ll be waking soon,” Stone says somewhere in the background. Fox can’t think why for all the noise in his mind.

“Fox,” Riyo murmurs, crouching in front of him and taking his hands in both of her tiny, soft ones. He flinches away, but she holds on. “Tell me what’s happened.”

Fox can’t meet her eyes. He can’t bear to see anything, hear anything, _do_ anything except focus on the warmth of her fingers curling around his. He screws his eyes shut and ignores the tightness of his throat.

“He was in my head. He had General Skywalker in his office. I took his, his clothes and his weapon and I… I marched his men on the Jedi Temple.” Her soft gasp is all the condemnation he needs. “We took Senator Amidala as bait for him when he escaped. He saved us, instead, when my men ambushed him. He got Sidious out of my head, but… Riyo, the children. There were so many _children,_ Riyo, and I—I can’t—”

“Shush now,” she says softly. Her hands move from his and the loss is _sharp,_ a burning cold that quickly melts when they slide over his unarmoured shoulders instead. She pulls him forward to rest his temple against her cheek. “That wasn’t you Fox, you said it yourself. It was this Si- _Sidious_ manipulating you.”

“But the children,” he whispers. “Unarmed _children.”_

“Fox, we need you here now. Can you come back to us? Please? For Padmé?” Fox swallows and opens his eyes. Her skin is dark in shadow as he draws back. She looks up at him through her lashes, eyes sorrowful, and smiles weakly. “I need you, Fox. We’ll get through this, I promise, but we need you here to help.”

Slowly, Fox nods. She pulls him up to stand again and tucks the cloak securely around him.

“Status on Padmé, Commander,” she asks Stone.

“Coming around, ma’am, but we need to move her to proper care soon,” Stone reports. “Threepio here says she’s almost due with the, uh, child, and needs some extra scans and attention.”

“Good.” Riyo nods and pulls out her communicator. “Bail? This is Chuchi.”

“Riyo!” the voice of Senator Organa answers. “It’s a relief to hear from you, are you all right?”

“Perfectly fine, but thank you. May I ask, are you with Master Mace Windu? I’m in Padmé’s office with Commanders Fox and Stone, they say they met General Skywalker. Padmé’s injured and in need of urgent care.”

“Star’s death, Riyo, we’re sending people to pick you up. Master Windu has told me of the Chancellor’s new move. You said you saw Skywalker?”

“The Commander did,” Riyo replies, flicking her eyes over to him. “Would you like to speak to him?”

“If you could, Senator, that would be most helpful,” replies General Windu down Bail’s connection.

“Of course.” Riyo smiles and reaches for Fox’s hand. She lifts the backs of his fingers to her mouth for a brief moment before placing her com in his hand and pushing it towards him. “I’ll be right here.”

Fox nods and lifts the small device to speak into. “This is Fox.”

The General spends a precious few minutes questioning him about Skywalker and Sidious before he seems in any way appeased. Fox answers as best he can with his flaky memory and pounding headache, desperate as he is to do something right, for once. Bail interjects once or twice to ask very pertinent questions about the orders and postings of his still-turned brothers; already, Fox can feel himself calming down as he’s gradually let into the plan.

The support team Bail sends arrives moments after he signs off and hands the com back to Riyo. He presumes, then, that they came from somewhere decidedly farther than Alderaan’s offices just down the hall, and waves Trip, Toll and Wrench over to flank him when he opens the door. All of their blasters rise in instinctive panic when they come face-to-face with Law and three of his men from the 187th. It’s gratifying to see them already at the gunpoints of Spanner and Duster.

“Who sent you?” Fox asks.

“Senator Organa and General Windu, sir,” Law answers. “How do we know you’re not compromised?”

“How do we know _you’re_ not compromised?” Spanner spits.

“Gentlemen, please,” interrupts Riyo, who slips past to stand fearlessly—recklessly—between them in the doorway.

“Ri— _Senator,_ please,” Fox says. He feels like he’s back to bordering on hysterics all over again. “Please, stay out of the line of fire.”

“None of you are going to hurt me,” she argues, as if she can _know_ that.

“General Skywalker brought my squad down outside his barracks nearly three hours ago,” Law says. He readies his blaster more solidly against his shoulder as he talks. “If anyone’s free of the damn control chips, it’s us.”

“Yeah? Well he did the same for us in Amidala’s apartment,” Wrench growls.

Blaster plasteel clicks threateningly against armour plates. “Who was with him when he arrived?”

“Captain Rex of the 501st.”

“Symptoms of a destroyed chip?”

“Nausea, dizziness, disorientation and a bangin’ damn headache,” Trip says. “Oh, and my left thumb is numb.”

“What about you?” Fox snarls. “What was Skywalker missing?”

“His shoes,” one of Law’s troopers says. The nose of his rifle dips briefly to Fox’s feet. “Pretty sure they’re those ones right there.”

“And I intend to return them.”

Law stares them down for a few moments longer. Fox is itching to grab Riyo out from between them and shove her away to safety, anywhere, _anywhere_ else, when Law finally lowers his rifle and motions for his men to stand down. Fox doesn’t sigh relief like he so desperately wants to (no, he’s too disciplined a dog for that), but he does wave away his own squad’s blasters.

Thankfully, the office is plenty big enough for all of them to move around in. Law’s medic sets about unfolding a makeshift stretcher and directing his company to maneouver Amidala onto it as gently as they can. Fox walks dazedly to her desk and collects Skywalker’s lightsaber, and then the com and the woven bracelet that had been in the pockets of his robe. He weighs them in his palm a short moment before returning them to the robe. 

_They’ll find them._

“Senator Organa has a ship waiting for us,” Law says. The stretcher is lifted between one of his men and Tin. “I think they’re going to intercept returning Jedi.”

“Then it’s time to move out,” Fox agrees. He waves to Stone, who already has their equipment packed away and waiting, and then reaches to brush his fingers over the backs of Riyo’s shoulders. “Senator, if you’ll come with us?”

Riyo smiles grimly and nods to Law. “Of course. Please lead the way.”

Fox and Law take point on the long walk through the Senate offices. Riyo stays with Amidala, two steps behind them, with one hand on her com and the other on the grip of her blaster. They only have to stun one other pair of Thire’s patrols before they make it to the docking bay.

Breha Organa is waiting for them at the mouth of the jetty, standing tall and regal and only barely betraying her anxiety in the tension of her shoulders.

“Riyo,” she says warmly, pulling her much shorter friend into a brief and warm hug. “Please, follow me. We have our best aides waiting in the medical bay.”

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Riyo tells Organa as they walk. Fox nods to Law and sends Stone away with him towards the bridge, not yet willing to let Riyo out of his sight. “Thank you for agreeing to help.”

Organa waves her hand sharply, glancing down at Amidala with a fretting twist to her lips. “Nonsense. We weren’t about to leave you, and especially Padmé in danger. If what’s being said about the Chancellor is correct…”

“It’s true, ma’am,” Fox says quietly. “That he’s Sith. That he’s been behind the war. That he’s—”

A small hand slips back into his, halting the stutter of his breaths. “It’s not your fault,” Riyo tells him again. Organa says nothing, and they reach the doors to the medbay before Fox can gather the wherewithal to apologise.

“Get her onto the bed, _quickly,”_ Law’s medic orders. He and his brothers hurry into the bay and set immediately to work, calling for scanners and droids and antiseptics. The transparisteel doors slip shut on them, leaving Fox, Organa and Riyo to watch their silenced professionalism in the stark white vacuum of their diplomatic vessel. Fox reaches out to dig his fingers into the irregular grooves in the wall panels to ground himself before he does something stupid, like think about Kamino.

Somewhere in the depths of the ship, not so far below, the engines begin to rumble.

“I’ll take you to the bridge,” Organa says, though she looks hesitant to leave Amidala. “The General and my husband are waiting for you.”

“If you’d like to stay, ma’am, I’m able to escort Senator Chuchi,” Fox offers. Organa takes one deep breath and turns away from the viewing window.

“Thank you, Commander, but I should be there with you. Come, it is likely we have much to discuss.”

* * *

He doesn’t know how many Coruscant rotations it’s been since they left. There’s a ship docked in a lower bay, a small one-man thing that looks like some kind of tear-drop, and isn’t that appropriate. He knows it’s there because someone—Stone, actually, not just _someone_ —commed an increasingly long time ago to inform him. 

He hadn’t bothered to go and greet their guest.

Instead Fox is curled with his head between his knees, in the dark, in the farthest corner of the bunk room from the door. Skywalker’s robe is draped over his legs and crossed arms in an effort to ward off the permeating space chill, or maybe to serve as an unwavering reminder of all of the atrocities he’s committed. He doesn’t have any of his weapons. He doesn’t know where they are. It’s probably for the best, really. Probably why Riyo had them taken from him. He can’t be trusted.

He’d rather put his next shot through his own temple before turning it on anyone else.

As soon as he finds something appropriate to do it with, he just might.

He can’t get the General’s expression when he saw him wearing Skywalker’s robe out of his mind.

The silence settled in the room has only been tempered by the ship’s engines and the occasional footsteps in the corridor outside for as long as Fox has been here, which is why it’s a little startling to find out that he’s close enough to the forward docking bays to _feel_ someone else attach to the jetty. Still he doesn’t move except to curl tighter around himself, or at least until Stone coms him again.

“Stone to Fox—General Kenobi and Commander Cody have docked and boarded the vessel. Requesting your presence on the bridge… if you’re available.”

Fox is silent as he stiffly raises a hand to prod the receiver on his gauntlet. The events of Coruscant are still too fresh for him to be surprised by Cody’s presence. Where there is Kenobi, there is Cody. Or something.

“Received, Commander,” he grits out, and his voice is as thick and raw as if he’s just woken up from a long stint in medical. “On my way.”

“Good to hear your voice, Commander. The Senator’s been worried.”

Well, he’s surprised she didn’t lock his bloody door. He would have. Unfortunately it doesn’t work as well when he locks it from the inside, so he’s had to try his best to ignore their little oversight.

It’s a slow, aggravating process persuading his limbs to remember how to move. They groan and protest and send him stumbling across the floor, tripping on the hem of the robe clutched in his hand that he doesn’t think to pull away in time. The lightsaber caught in its pocket is a heavy weight, a reminder, dragging him down to the depths of the raging ocean he was decanted from. The metaphorical shore is a million miles away, and he wouldn’t go searching for it even if it wasn’t; he deserves this, this pain, this slow and torturous death of guilt and heartache.

He doesn’t make it to the bridge, in the end. Voices slip down the corridors like whispering echoes of a condemning past, striking him in all the places raw and torn. He staggers into the adjacent briefing room, unused and as pitch black as his bunk. A small thud rattles through the durasteel where his shoulder meets the wall and he slides down to the floor again, unable to breathe or see or feel anything but the damning, accusatory burn of Skywalker’s lightsaber against his leg.

He doesn’t know whether or not he’s supposed to be grateful when the door slips open and a pair of light, harried feet enter the room.

“Fox,” Riyo breathes. She crouches in front of him and holds out her hands, waiting until he looks from them to her face and nods to place them on his arms. “Fox, let’s get you a proper seat, okay? Can we do that? Can you stand?”

Fox nods and doesn’t shy away from her firm hold as she helps him up. No, in fact, to his aching shame and disgust, he can’t do anything but lean into her, crave her, beg for her warmth and generosity. It makes him sick, but he doesn’t pull away. He _can’t._

There’s a bench running along the length of the other wall, behind the wide holotable. Riyo takes him over to it and sits down next to him, curled under his arm, stroking a gentle hand over his heaving chest. Funny—he hadn’t noticed he’d begun hyperventilating.

“Do I get my blasters back?” he tries to ask lightheartedly, make it a weak joke. At this point he isn’t even thinking about what a danger that could pose to the crew, he just wants something to turn on himself when he needs it. He doesn’t want to have to rely on his brothers to do it for him like a coward.

But Riyo doesn’t laugh or scold or look at him in disgust. She moves the hand to his hair, strokes through the curls and down his cheek and back again, and smiles so softly he thinks he might cry. “Just focus on staying with us right now, okay?” she murmurs. 

Fox swallows and nods and looks down at the hand over his thigh. He’s hesitant and slow, but when he finally dares slip his fingers through hers she smiles and curls them tighter together.

“I love you,” she whispers, and it wrenches a surprised sob from his next breath. “I love you, and I’m going to make sure you’re safe, I promise. We’re both going to get through this.”

 _It’s not fair,_ he thinks, even as he breaks down and cries into her silken lilac hair, _she shouldn’t have to deal with this._ She has done so much, loved so deeply. She doesn’t deserve to be landed with a mindless, genocidal monster. She doesn’t deserve the weight of the galaxy sitting on her shoulders. She deserves true happiness, the selfless love of the kindest of the kind, the jewellery and the pretty clothes without the stress and abuse of her work. But she’s here, with him, in a dark room with seemingly no intention of leaving.

He loves her so much. 

He shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near.

* * *

Fox only realises Riyo’s humming sweetly to him once he gets his breathing back under control. He straightens slightly, tries his best to take his weight from her without disturbing her, bemused when she merely leans into him instead. His cries have died out and his tears have long dried in tracks on his cheeks, so he keeps her tucked into his side and closes his eyes again, falling back against the wall, drained and listless.

“Would you be okay with bringing Master Kenobi in here?” she asks him quietly. So quietly he almost doesn’t hear what she says. “He’d like to talk to you, and he said he’d help make sure the Sith is really out of your head.”

“Okay,” Fox agrees. Despite his dread and rising fear, he’s far too tired to argue. Whatever they do to him, it’s been earned.

Riyo extracts herself carefully from his side. The holotable flickers on, displaying a slowly spinning astromap that must be moving with the ship as they sail through hyperspace—he’s been so out of it he hadn’t even realised they’d jumped again. White light grows in a thick, rectangular pillar across the room when the door opens, is held open, and then closes again. This time, there are two soft sets of footsteps on the durasteel floors.

“Commander.” 

General Obi-Wan Kenobi is renowned among brothers as forever holding a calm and non-threatening composure when off the battlefield. Fox has worked with the man, so he knows it for himself. Fox has heard (many times over) all of his never-ending virtues sung by Cody, Rex, and anyone else he’s shared a kind word with. Fox knows, Fox _knows_ he knows, but it still doesn’t prepare him for the sheer gentleness of Kenobi’s warm, honeyed voice.

“General,” he replies hoarsely. The bundle of Skywalker’s cloak shifts as he reaches in to finally pull that burning saber grip from his skin; he thinks he must be becoming delirious, because something beneath the metal is _humming._

He offers up the General’s lightsaber. “You should… take this.”

It’s an effort to work his throat to swallow as he watches Kenobi’s expression crumble. Two fair eyebrows pull pitifully together and the jaw beneath the beard trembles, just slightly, and fingers with bitten nails curl weakly around the grip between his own. Kenobi lifts it from his hand—Fox lets it fall, useless, into his lap—and looks at it as if it is his own death sentence.

“Thank you, Commander,” he says, and his voice is strained something awful.

“He was alive last I knew, General. Rex was with him. They’ll look after each other.”

Kenobi nods. A little of the tension lifts from his brow, and he smiles. “They will.” The lightsaber disappears, and the robe is lifted from his lap. “Now, Commander. I was told that you might be in need of some psychic help?”

Fox nods but feels himself begin to curl in on himself all the same, away from the Jedi and the murky darkness that had slithered into his head like thin, malevolent oil. Riyo, who has retaken her seat at his side without him noticing, grips his hand tighter. He takes a deep breath and opens his eyes again to watch Kenobi.

“I’m no healer, but I will do all I can to help, if you wish it. If there is anything, anything at all that you do not like or are unsure about, tell me and I’ll stop. Is that okay?”

When Fox nods again, Kenobi's smile is stronger this time.

Fox isn’t worthy of it. It makes him feel grimy, uncomfortable. But he doesn’t look away.

Kenobi lifts a hand and waits for his permission to press space-cold fingers to Fox’s temple, and then closes his eyes.

* * *

At first, he flinches.

Kenobi’s mind brushing against his is not the sharp pinprick static of the dar’jetiise, nor is it the grease-slick slide of some horrific, unknown _thing_ against his thoughts. No, he’d say it’s more like the mental equivalent of the relief every brother feels when they finally peel out of their armour and blacks of an evening, of the cool recycled air washing in to soothe tight, asphyxiated skin.

It’s less raging Kamino ocean than the trickle of the stream he once saw when accompanying Riyo through one of the old Royal Botanical Gardens.

It’s less howling gale than the ghost of Riyo’s sigh behind closed doors.

Fox relaxes a little, and, reluctantly, lets it in.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, Fox is a hot fucking mess. Cant blame him.
> 
> Come cry with me about these guys over on [tumblr :)](https://silverxsakura.tumblr.com/)


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